Down but not out...

My apologies that the videos and photos that I have hosted aren't working. The web hosting service I use has been down all weekend and I'm a bit miffed about it because they haven't bothered to reply to my emails as to why it's down or how long the outage will last.

Hopefully today it will be back up.

A Dog Video

FreeVideoCoding.com

The Dentist

I’m off to the dentist tomorrow. Two crowns and a filling are what I’m scheduled for. And boy, oh, boy, am I ever looking forward to eating and drinking again without wincing in pain every time I ingest something cold.

I am not, however, looking forward to him sticking me with that needle multiple times in order to get those pesky nerves deadened. He seems to have trouble with me for some reason -- it takes him forever to finally get my teeth deadened to the point that I can take the high-speed drill without coming unglued. Maybe it’s him, or maybe it’s just the way I’m hardwired. Who knows?

Open up and say, “Ah”.

The Situation

The company my wife works for had to fire a guy last week who had many years of service with the company. I'm not sure of all the details but apparently he was given a bad review (well deserved, I'm told), after which he threatened to bring in his Uzi and "take care of everybody". Needless to say the police escorted him out.

From what my wife told me, the guy's life has been spiraling out of control for quite some time now and he started blaming it on others, including the company he worked for. Gambling, overspending, and losing his house were just a few of his problems. Apparently his wife has similar vices.

When my wife told me this last night, I understandably become concerned for her safety. And even though the guy who got fired was on good terms with my wife, I told her that it might be a good idea to start packing a pistol in her purse just in case. After all, this is the kind of story that makes the headlines all the time.

I asked my wife what her company's firearm policy is. She told me they're not allowed. I could have guessed that one; it's so typical. This is the kind of situation that gives guys like this a potential killing field; and would-be mass murderers know this, which is why companies are targeted more frequently.

Anyway, we prayed and I'm believing God for her protection. However, I still believe one has the God-given right of self-defense, and not only that, but a responsibility to do so. And that responsibility should not be hindered by any company policy barring firearms. If more law-abiding folks carried guns, there would be fewer scenarios like what we read about in the papers.

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow!

These scenes are reminiscent of what's been going on in my neck of the woods lately.

Video Clip 1

Video Clip 2

Remember, press "Alt+3" to get a larger view if you don't like the original size the clips were created in. Also, if you have dial-up, you probably won't be able to view them unless you download them first. You do this by right-clicking on either of the links above and choose "Save Target As".

Enjoy!

P.S. As a matter of fact, the snow may not be over yet. Tonight they are predicting between 4 to 8 inches of the white stuff will fall in the Tulsa area, starting at around midnight. I've been placed "on call", and if the predictions prove to be accurate, I'll have to go into work, possibly in the wee hours of the morning, and start clearing the sidewalks and streets of the hospital campus all over again. Arrgghhh! Deja Vu. But the money is good.

Life Pics

Me on the kitchen floor with our first German Shepherd pup, Ashley.
Me going through my "cool" stage. Yeah, I know. Stupid. :)
My bro and myself (right) at a TKD tournament

And this is a pic of me standing by my hot rod when I was 22-years-old. Yep, had myself a beard, too.

Believe it or not, when I had my web site up and running, someone from a European message board posted this pic on it. I found out about it because they hot-linked to it, which enabled me to track down the forum where it was located. I no longer have the domain name "bryansspace.com", so you wont' be able to see the picture that was embedded on the message board anymore, but at least you can read what was said.

It was fun chatting with European muscle car enthusiasts! I had no idea there was a following in Europe for American Muscle Cars. Notice too what the young European female said about my circa 1980's hairstyle. Too funny!

Before kids it was dogs. An early picture of me holding our first German Shepherd after my wife and I got married.

Me standing beside the prop of a B-17 at an airshow.

Driving my "machine".

My wife (then girlfriend) shot this one of me just goofing around.

Mother and daughter
My wife's senior picture.

Another winter blast

Nothing much to report. Just another Oklahoma ice storm. At least in the Tulsa and Claremore area our roads are drivable, though it's not advisable to get out unless one has to.

The Muskogee area got hit much worse. They experienced power outages and as far as I've heard, power is not back on yet.

The Insurrection!

On my way to work every morning I walk by a day-care center owned by the hospital I work for. Today when I walked by the playground at the day-care, I noticed toys strewn everywhere outside the fence.

Hmm, I thought, wonder what that's all about?

Then a word entered my mind that made me smile: Insurrection! I'm guessing it was a way for the little ones to express a sense of rebellion and or frustration at being held captive for several hours each day against their will and away from their parents.

The smile lingered for a while longer, but then I became a bit sad because I realized people who are not family are basically raising those precious little ones, Monday through Friday. Granted, most of the day-care workers are great gals who love children (I know several of them) and the kids are fortunate for that fact, but as I think most people will attest to, there is no substitute for being raised by your own parents.

Now I have nothing against day-cares or the parents who drop off their children at them, had it not been for my wife's mother we might have gone down that same road, though I always swore that would never happen if Grandma weren't available. It's just that in today's society I don't think it's always really necessary for both parents to work. I think we as nation are more materialistic than we realize, and if we would learn to be content with less, our children would be the better for it. Once we think we need to have more to be happy, we start sliding down a slippery slope; one not easily recovered from once started down.

In the end only faith, obedience to and love for God will matter. All else will eventually turn to dust, especially our possessions.

Indescribable

This is a video I recently uploaded. A friend from work loaned me the DVD and I thought it would be inspiring to send to friends and family and to post on my blog.

It helped me put things in perspective, as I hope it will for you, too.

When Media Player comes up, hit "Alt+3" to enlarge the screen for better viewing if you don't already have it on that setting by default.

If you want to download it, right-click on this link and choose "Save Target As".

I don't know how long I'll have it on the server so if you want to download it you might want to do it within the next few weeks.

The Civil War Medal

The Medal


Joseph Asbury Denbo

Civil War Badge

Union Army



By: Lou Ann (Parrish) Sandel

August 26, 1991



I found the badge of J. A. Denbo in a plowed field about 5 miles west of New Waverly, Texas in Walker County. It was on the site of what was once the Moore’s Grove School. My parents, Mr. & Mrs. Wyte Parrish, had purchased the property in 1937. I do not recall the exact day or year, but in thinking back to the time, have decided that I was eight to ten years old; therefore, it would have been in the summer of 1942, 1943 or 1944.

I was excited about the “find”, but since the name on it was unfamiliar, no thought was ever given to trying to locate the owner. My dad soldered a safety pin on the back so I could wear it, but I don’t recall ever doing so.

When I married in January 1954, I took the badge with me and kept it in my jewelry box. My husband made a drawing of it that year and we intended to mail it to someone to see if we could learn anything about the owner, but for lack of a name or address the drawing was placed with the badge and put back in the jewelry box. The only ones who saw it after that until the summer of 1990 were our three daughters: Lynette, Diane and Rae Ann.

The badge and drawing remained in the jewelry box until the summer of 1990 when two of our granddaughters, Lamanda and Melody Vogt, ages 11 and 9, came for a visit. In an attempt to entertain them, I remembered the badge and knew that they liked going to the library so I suggested that we go and see if we could find out which war the badge had been worn in. We had no luck with badge identification so we went to the Genealogy Room to see if anyone there could help us. It was suggested that I look in the Census Records for the state of Indiana for the name “Denbo”.

Not knowing which war the badge had been worn in, I decided to look in the 1860 records, just in case it was the Civil War. Two counties, Cass and Harrison, had Denbos whose first names began with the Letter “J”. When I looked up these counties on a map, I discovered a New Waverly in Cass County and thinking that might be the common link, I wrote the City Library in Logansport - the largest town in the county. I enclosed a copy of the drawing of the badge and told them we were trying to locate a living descendant of Mr. Denbo and asked if they had a Genealogy Society that might be able to help. I received a form letter from them in October, 1990 stating that they could not, but giving me three names and addresses of people who might be able to. They also returned my letter and copy of the drawing. By that time, the granddaughters were in school, I was working and the badge, drawing and letters were set aside.

This summer when I knew the granddaughters would be coming back for a visit, I got the letters and drawing out and randomly chose a name from the three that the library had recommended. On July 1, 1991 I wrote to Mrs. Barbara Wolfe in Logansport, Indiana and much to my surprise she replied shortly with the information that J. A. Denbo was Joseph A. Denbo, who had enlisted on August 29, 1862 at Newton-Stewart which is in Orange County, Indiana. He was mustered out June 3, 1865 as a corporal. This information was in the Terrell Report (Adj. General), Civil War, Volume 6, page 60. Mrs. Wolfe was the Military Historian of Cass County. She suggested that I contact the Orange County Historical Society of Paoli, Indiana.

As Mrs. Wolfe had suggested, I wrote the Orange County Historical Society on July 16 and by the end of July, I had received information from the president of the society who was a distant relative of Mr. Denbo. She was Marjorie Lapping. The information she sent included a picture of Mr. Denbo as well as copies of pages from the “History of Orange County” with information about Mr. Denbo and the 66th Regiment, Company E, genealogical charts of his descendants in Oklahoma, “The Denbo Family History”, and an article about one of his daughters.

The information indicated that Mr. Denbo was buried at Catoosa, Oklahoma and that a young man from Oklahoma was furnishing this information...so I called directory assistance for Tulsa, Oklahoma and asked for the phone numbers of the last two young men on the genealogy chart, William McCright and Steven Ross Barton. I called both and they had answering machines so I left a message on Mr. McCright’s giving him my name and phone number and indicating that I had information on J. A. Denbo. I then got the number for Betty (Mrs. Clarence) Barton and called her. She was in and I told her of the badge and my plans to give it to the nearest living descendant. She suggested John Olen Denbo of Claremore, Oklahoma, a grandchild, and gave me his phone number.

That afternoon Mr. McCright returned my call and was interested in having the badge. He said he had been involved in the production of a documentary on the Civil War just recently and it was to air on PBS this fall. He was working on the Denbo family history, but was not the young man who had compiled the other information. (According to Mrs. Barton, it was Stan Hodges, a distant relative.)

On August 12, I called Mr. John Denbo and talked with his wife. Mrs. Barton had told them of my call and Mrs. Denbo said that her husband would like very much to have the badge. I told her that we were planning to bring the granddaughters with us when we traveled to Oklahoma and that we would have to wait until they had a day out of school.

On August 21, I received another letter from Mrs. Lapping in Indiana with the information that she had talked with a great-grandson, Charles H. Denbo, of Orleans, Indiana and that he too would like to have the badge.

So far, no date has been decided on to restore the badge to a member of Mr. Denbo’s family.


The End

Joseph Asbury Denbo sitting on the left, the original
owner of the medal.



Update:

Due to circumstances which prevented us from ever taking the badge to Oklahoma, I mailed it to Mr. John Denbo in Claremore, Oklahoma in September 1994. Since he was a relative of Will Rogers, and on the board at the Will Rogers Museum, he placed the badge there on display.

Each year after I had first contacted Betty Barton, she and I had exchanged Christmas Cards keeping each other up-to-date. I kept telling her that I would really like to meet her and that hopefully someday that would happen.

In October 2003, we decided on the spur of the moment to take a trip to Oklahoma and Arkansas to see the fall foliage. I told my husband that if we were going to be in the vicinity of Tulsa that I would like to see if we could visit the Barton's. So, we planned to spend one night at Broken Arrow, Oklahoma. After we arrived and found a place to stay, I called Betty to see if they would be available for a brief visit.

She told me they had plans for that morning, but if we could come that afternoon they would be home.

So, after nearly 12 years of exchanging cards at Christmas, I finally had the joy of meeting Betty, her husband Bart, her sister Margaret and her husband Bill. We enjoyed the visit so much because all of them were so warm and sincere and it will be something that I will never forget. All of this because somehow their great grandfather’s badge had gotten to Texas from Indiana and a young girl found it. The next day we went to Claremore and met John and Bernice Denbo. They were as warm and sincere as the others, making that a trip truly to remember.

The only mystery remaining now is how the badge got to Texas. No Civil War battles were fought there and as far as we know no relatives ever lived there.

My husband’s great grandfather was in the Confederate Army and fought in some of the same battles in which Mr. Denbo fought (for the Union Army), so he concludes that Mr. Denbo lost the badge in one of those. His great grandfather found it, brought it home and one of his children took it to school and lost it.

Many thanks to Lou Ann for contributing to this page by going into great detail about how she found the medal, and then how she later tracked down the descendants of Joseph Denbo. Our family owes her a dept of gratitude for having done this.

John Denbo of Claremore, a grandchild of Joseph's, was chosen to be the recipient of the medal. John is my Great uncle and Joseph Asbury Denbo was my G,G, Grandfather.

The medal can now be seen at the Will Rogers Memorial in Claremore, OK , where it is currently on display.
Bryan

Lou Ann Parrish Sandel holding Joseph's medal, which she found when she was a little girl. This picture was taken on September 15, 1994, just before she mailed it to John Denbo. Click on the photograph for a larger image.